One beat too slow

It doesn't always happen that more than two sensei/sempais are telling you about the same problem. But when it does, you know you've found a critical thing to improve on, and that's fantastic.

What Tseng-Sensei (曾育仁) told me when practising with him was that I was "a beat too slow", and I tend to kneel down a bit before I strike, which made me slow.

While practising with Liao Sempai (廖泳畋) he also observed similar problem: I hesitated at moments when I should strike, or I would wait for the opponent's action and step backwards, basically not going forward enough.

He commented also that when I do shikake-waza, such as kote-men or maki-men, the body should go forwards already on the first strike to create pressure on the opponent.

These are great advices which can take me to the next level - a competitive kenshi.

To become one with the sword

Sometimes I get striked on the men when I doesn't cover it properly with my shinai. I raise my shinai to block, but my upper body bends back instead of dodge to the direction of the shinai. The bending backward creates a space open for the opponent to reach my men.

The other day while practising with Chou-Sempei (周群堯), I got hit again like this. I realised that I didn't trust my shinai enough. I didn't have the confidence that it can defend me against my opponent.

But then isn't it the same with attacking? To commit the strike, throwing the body onto the opponent to execute a powerful strike, is also to trust in the weapon in your hand that it's going to slice the opponent in half.

Didn't the folk use to say: "Becoming one with the sword?"

Small cut

My performance in the last few trainings have been up and down. In some trainings my strikes were solid and confident, while in some I couldn't seem to commit my strikes fully. In situations where confidence was lacking, I not only attacked less and reacted slowly but I tend to bend my upper body backwards too often to avoid strikes. What a waste of training time.

In last night's training, however, I could commit to my strikes. It was almost like a conscious decision that I was going to launch my strikes forwards with confidence, and then I did it. It had also a lot to do with the fumigomi. When I stomp solidly on the ground, it helped to bring power and speed in my strikes.

Last night I also strike the do successfully for the first time against Ho sensei. First I put some seme and strike his shinai from the omote side as though I'm going for the men cut, and then I quickly switched to do.

Chang-sempai （張代林）let me practised small men-cuts after doing jigeiko with him. He asked me extend my arms up until the tip is just above the opponent's men, and then extend my arms and wrists forwards. Importantly, the wrist should not flex backward before striking, which was difficult for me since I was afraid of not having enough power. Bring the power in strike in this way requires good tenouchi with the body going forwards at the same time. I need to practise more.

Short shiai-geiko

Last Friday we had a short shiai-geiko. I was in the less strong division, so I won all except one. My problem was that there is a tendency for me to return to kamae before any strikes, so when my opponent just comes up and strikes relentlessly, I just defend... Need to adjust this mentality for competitions.

Ho-Sensei told us:

• In Shiai, one cannot wait until the opponent shows a complete opening before striking. One should strike when it appears just a little chance.

Natural stance kamae 自然身構

After reading a document written by Toshio Matsumoto (松本 敏夫), 9th Dan Hanshi, talking about various detailed fundamental aspect of kendo, including body postures and weight distributions in kamae and during strikes. It got me excited after reading it, because I have noticed a few things which worried me at the back of my mind:

• 1. I lose the ai-men strikes very often, and my shinai tends to miss and drift towards my opponent's left-side.

• 2. Most sensei's kamae appears that their left hand is not exactly aligned with the tip of the sword, but shifted very slightly to their left. And I have also seen black and white pictures of some renounced 9th and 10th Dan Senseis, holding kamae in this way.

• 3. Kuroda-san once mentioned when I visited him in Tokyo that shifting the left hand slightly to the left and pointing the shinai towards the left eye of opponent. But I haven't actually gone out and try it.

After reading the document by Matsumoto Sensei, I think I found that could be the answers to these questions. The following are some main points:

• The bottom of the waist would face directly towards the opponent, however from there above until the shoulders, the body is twisted naturally towards the left, with the direction shown by the dashed straight line in the picture at the top.

• The root of thumb of the left hand is placed in front of the navel, and because of so, with the upper body facing slightly to the left, the left hand is slightly off-center, which is drawn as the solid line connecting between you and the opponent.

• The tip of the shinai should, however, be on the solid line pointing towards the opponent's left eye or between the eyes. So that a triangle is formed by: 1) the line connecting the two shoulders, 2) the tip of shinai to the right shoulder, and 3) the tip of shinai to the left shoulder. (As shown below.)

• This triangle should be maintained during movement, and is the basis to all attacks and defenses.

• The left hand should be at the "body-centerline" (the dashed line in the top diagram) always.

This is what Matsumoto Sensei called the "natural stance (自然身構)". Because this is the most natural, without the unnecessary tension, for example, on the left wrist if it were to be exactly on the center-line (to the opponent).

He also said that there are following three advantages to stand this way:

• The opponent's tsuki-attack slides off easily.
• When you strike men, the opponents shinai slides off easily.
• Difficult for the opponent to strike the kote.

However, one should be careful that if the shinai tip is too much to the right side, the men would be left open.

I experimented with this last week, and had good results. My ai-men was stronger, and suriage-men felt more natural. It seems that because I wanted my shoulders to face directly forwards before, my left hand tended to shift to the right during the strike, which is very self-destructing. Maintaining a natural angle with the shoulders seems logical since the right hand is much farther than the left hand. I remember once I asked Ozawa Sensei if it's ok to have one shoulder extending farther than the other, he said promptly: "Ok, ok!"